


Irrevocable

by stripeypirate



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Gen, Introspection, Suicide, short and sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-09
Updated: 2014-03-09
Packaged: 2018-01-15 03:52:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1290265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stripeypirate/pseuds/stripeypirate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She can't go back. Not now, not ever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Irrevocable

**Author's Note:**

> I took a little bit of poetic license with the grammar.

_Safety is an illusion_

She thinks, staring at the sweet curve of his neck. Following the line of smooth skin as it wrenches sharply to the left like a sudden bend in the river. A thin trickle of blood blossoms from his lips, eyes staring blankly at the sky. A sky he vowed to crack open and free with his bare hands.

_No, we were going to be free._ The harness hangs slack from its wires, broken as the boy with the impossible dream who lies huddled beneath it. Shadis examines the belt, shaking his head sadly. The other trainees still stand with eyes wide and dumb as fish. Mikasa wonders how many will be make the right choice and be gone by morning.

_I was only trying to save you._  

* * *

 

She feels Armin’s sea urchin eyes boring into her everywhere she goes. They burn with desperate questions and stubborn disbelief.

_He’d have figured it out by now._

The scarf hangs limp around her neck, a silent badge of shame. Red as his busted nose and shattered teeth. It coils like a snake on her shoulders, sinking its fangs into her chest. I kill everything I touch. She ignores his urgent gestures and leaves the mess hall with her plate untouched. 

* * *

 

Mikasa doesn’t sleep. She doesn’t need nightmares to see clotted blood pooling in the shadows or hear muffled voices cursing her name. Instead she stands in the center of the barracks, surrounded by slumbering figures that stir and call out into the darkness.

_I am nothing._

She pulls at a loose thread, watching with detached curiosity as it unspools from its brethren, falling in a thin red line at her feet.

_I am poison._

Her lips taste like salt, which is impossible because she hasn’t cried, hasn’t been able to cry since he wrapped that scarf tight around her neck.

Only it’s disintegrating into individual strands as she tugs and pulls, clawing at the damn thing because it’s _suffocating_ her and she can’t breathe until the scarf is a puddle of red string on the floorboards.

_This is all my fault, Eren. I’m sorry I won’t be able to see you again._

Mikasa steps out into the chill spring night, her bare feet moving soundlessly along the dirt path through the training camp. She clutches her gear in a tangle in one hand.

_I was so cold the night we met, do you remember?_

The blade feels sturdy in her hand. Solid and real, unlike the swirling mass of chaos around her.

A flick of her wrist and cold steel caresses the delicate skin of her inner arm. Again, on the other side. A flood of red, red, red, spreading across the grass, taking the twisted, ropey pain inside her chest with it.

_If you don’t fight, you can’t win…_

_You would hate this, wouldn’t you?_

A dull roaring fills her head, and her vision begins to grey. Her cheek presses into the damp ground, releasing the loamy scent of earthworms and stretching roots.

_Does the earth smell different outside the walls? Armin will have to find out for us._

_We will all be free._

**Author's Note:**

> One of my personal theories is that Mikasa was the one who messed with Eren's gear at the beginning, so he would be forced to leave the military and would therefore be safe. A friend challenged me to write "what if Eren broke his neck as the result of her actions?"


End file.
